Events

Andrew Sullivan takes a step back and explains, carefully and quietly, the tyrant's mindset: [T]yranny is not, in its essence, about the authoritarian and administrative skills required to run a country effectively for a long time. Tyrants, after all, are often terrible at this. It is rather about a mindset, as the ancient philosophers understood, with obvious political consequences. It’s a pathology. It requires no expertise in anything other than itself. You need competence if you want to run an...

Radley Balko has reported on criminal justice for over a decade, and I would argue he's the most-informed journalist on the subject in the United States. I therefore trust his analysis of Breanna Taylor's death more than most. In today's Washington Post, he lays out the facts about Kentucky law and about the case as far as he knows, and corrects some misinformation currently swirling around social media: Wednesday’s announcement from Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron about criminal charges in the...

As of yesterday, I've hit my daily step goal 250 times in a row. My previous record streak, which ended 7 November 2019, was 207 days. I'm pretty sure I'll make it another 115 or more days, barring injury or impenetrable snowfall. And because this current streak began on the last day I traveled outside of Illinois, that means it's also been 250 days since I last flew anywhere. The previous streak of 221 days ended when I flew to London on 31 August 2018. So, every day I'm prevented from traveling by...

In an interview yesterday, the president refused to say that he would allow a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the election. Understandably, people are upset that a sitting president would hint at doing anything else. But as Josh Marshall points out, this guy lies more easily than most people breathe, so maybe we don't need to freak out as much as we are: No one needs to tell us these threats and bogus claims are wrong. But it is still necessary to step back and realize that there’s no chaos. We...

More than 200,000 people have died of Covid-19 since we started paying attention six months ago. Let me put that into perspective: The columns represent the total number of deaths for each event (blue) or per year (gray). The line represents those deaths on an annualized basis. At 400,000 deaths per year, Covid-19 now ranks as the third leading cause of death in the US for 2020 after cancer and heart disease. We're on course to have 133 9/11s or 12 times our usual number of car crash deaths just this...

Tropical Storm Zeta formed in the Atlantic on 30 December 2005 and almost became a hurricane on 2 January 2006. When Zeta finally dissipated on January 6th, it ended the most active Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history, and also one of the most destructive: category-5 hurricanes Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma caused incredible damage and loss of life throughout the US. The season also included three unnamed tropical depressions and an unnamed tropical storm. That season, Tropical Storm Alpha...

Welcome to stop #36 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Alter Brewing Co, 2300 Wisconsin Ave., Downers GroveTrain line: BNSF, Belmont Time from Chicago: 48 minutes (Zone E)Distance from station: 800 m Ah, the suburbs. Sometimes you can find a brewery down a stroad and along another stroad in a light-industrial park on the outskirts of an outskirts town. Alter Brewing Company's Downers Grove taproom will never appear on the National Register of Historic Places. But it appears on the Brews and Choos...

The cartoonist and author behind Hyperbole and a Half has returned with a new book, which I should receive tomorrow. This news offsets pretty much all the other news from today: Author John Scalzi, who lives in a very red, rural county in Ohio, has a depressing report about mask-wearing in his area. Wisconsin is back on Illinois' shit-list for its rapidly-increasing Covid-19 case load. Olga Khazan says the 200,000 Covid-19 deaths (officially, as of today) signal a "failure of empathy." Wired has the...

The GOP panic to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat makes three things absolutely clear: first, they expect to lose bigly in six weeks; second, they realize they're against public opinion; and third, they realize that public opinion is continuing to turn against them. In short, this is quite literally their last chance to get a SCOTUS seat for a generation. You know what? Everyone else is sick of their bullshit. We're going to win both houses and the presidency, and then we're going to...

Choral board meeting followed by chorus rehearsal: all on Zoom, and as president and generally techy guy, I'm hosting. After a full day of work and a 5 km walk. Whew. So what's new? David Corn advises the Democratic Party to "go nuclear." Greg Sargent views the malarkey from Republican senators and the president as unmasking their "vile game." The CDC abruptly withdrew guidance warning about the airborne spread of Covid-19, which could not have more obviously come from political interference. Democratic...